RTO to check for tampered meters even at night

The drive against rickshaws running on tampered meters and school buses violating the safety policy continued in the suburbs on Thursday.

The drive against rickshaws running on tampered meters and school buses violating the safety policy continued in the suburbs on Thursday.

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The Wadala RTO would be adding two squads to the existing three that will crack down on rigged rickshaw meters. With the added manpower, it plans to conduct checks in the eastern suburbs even at night. “One squad of officials will have representatives from the pollution control board and other departments. The gadget that detects rigged meter has been returned to the Andheri RTO. But we will focus on cases of fare refusal,” said an official from the Wadala RTO, requesting anonymity.

The Andheri RTO, meanwhile, will step up inspection of school buses. “Inspection of rigged auto-rickshaw meters will continue in the western suburbs, but we will focus more on school bus safety norms,” said DV Modak, assistant RTO, Andheri.

“We will check if the school bus for things such as licences, permits, batch numbers, insurance, vehicle condition, availability of fire extinguishers, and display of list of students,” he added.

The Wadala RTO recently visited major bus operators in the region to inspect condition of buses and found that most of them had complied with safety norms. “We have visited select schools that provide bus service and found that 80% of the buses are complying with safety norms. Therefore, while the drive to inspect school buses will continue, we will be stepping up action against rickshaw drivers who break the law,” said the source from Wadala RTO.